by Alex Kava
He saw the girl turn to look back. She was clearly debating her choices.
“You came to me,” Creed reminded her. “If you want my help, you’re gonna need to trust me.”
He watched her face—pain, fear, anxiety—she couldn’t hide it anymore. He almost wished she’d choose to stay. He still had time to fetch Officer Salazar and let him take care of her. That was CBP’s job. Creed and Grace’s job was simply to search and find. Maybe if he didn’t still remember those girls and boys from the fishing boat—the looks on their faces forever embedded in his memory—maybe he’d have let Salazar take care of it from the very first lie. Because he knew as soon as this girl walked out this exit with him, his life would never be the same again.
She looked up at him, eyes watery, nose running, and nodded. “I guess I have nothing to lose,” she mumbled, so quietly he figured she was telling herself instead of him.
And she squeezed past him through the doorway and into the hall that would take them directly to his Jeep.
He let the heavy door shut behind him and waited for the lock to click. All the while, in his mind, he kept thinking that he had absolutely everything to lose.
19
CREED WATCHED THE REARVIEW MIRROR. His security clearance parking meant he didn’t have to deal with any of the airport checkpoints. Whoever was waiting to pick up this girl and her keeper would never get a glimpse of his Jeep Grand Cherokee leaving.
Maybe if he was lucky—God willing—it would take them a while to figure out who he was. But because of his and Grace’s unwanted celebrity, they certainly would figure it out quickly. And when they did, they would know exactly where to find him. Right now Creed wasn’t sure what would be worse—the drug thugs finding him or having to tell Hannah that he was bringing home one of their mules.
Hannah had brought home quite a few unsavory characters from Segway House: drug addicts, runaways, wounded soldiers like Jason. But this was different. None of them had targets on their backs. Nor did they have thousands of dollars’ worth of cocaine in their gut that belonged to someone else.
He glanced at the girl and wondered if her name was even Amanda. She had curled herself tight into the passenger seat, buckling up only on his insistence. Still, she managed to hike her feet up and hug her knees to her chest. He’d covered her with a jacket when she mumbled that she was cold. She kept the jacket in place, though she turned down his request to flip the seat warmer on. It had to be almost ninety degrees outside. He kept the temperature on her side of the Jeep at seventy-three.
She no longer trembled but her face still glistened with sweat. She was still in pain. She’d taken a bottle of water that he’d offered earlier but it remained in the cup holder on her side, unopened.
Creed had never dealt with drug mules before, but he knew enough to realize that if a balloon with cocaine had burst inside her stomach, she’d already be dead. But there was nothing to stop it from still happening. A few times he had to look hard to make sure she hadn’t died on him. He kept thinking she had fallen asleep because she was so quiet, but each time he glanced over, he noticed that her eyes stayed open. Her head pressed against the seat’s headrest. She stared out the window, almost as if she were expecting to recognize some of the scenery.
She didn’t ask any more questions and neither did Creed. He didn’t want to hear anything else, not right now. There would be plenty of time to decipher her lies. Hannah would help him figure out what to do with her. She’d be madder than hell with him, but she’d still help.
It was about a four-hour drive from the Atlanta airport to his home in the panhandle of Florida. Usually he took Interstate 65, but outside Montgomery, Alabama, he exited and traveled a two-lane until he was convinced that no one had followed him.
Every time he glanced in the rearview mirror to check on Grace, she was staring at him from her perch. The backseat of the SUV lay flat with Grace’s bed in the middle and their equipment squeezed into the far corner. She had her pink elephant beside her but she caught his eyes in the mirror every time he looked at her. Then she’d turn her head and glance in Amanda’s direction.
Under other circumstances he’d probably laugh at her persistence. She didn’t understand why he’d brought the “fish” with them. He’d never brought it inside the car before. In all of her training and in all of her past experiences, he would ask her to “go find fish.” People in a crowded airport looked at Creed funny when he used the word “fish,” but if he used the word “drugs” for the cue, they might scatter and run.
Grace was one of his multitask dogs, which meant she could search for bodies dead or alive as well as particular things, like drugs. But she needed different cues to know what she should search for. Creed put different harnesses or vests on her for certain tasks, but he also used different words for what she was supposed to search out.
So Grace was confused. Today she had completed her task successfully. She had searched out and found what he had asked for. For which she’d been rewarded with her pink elephant. But unlike ever before, her master had brought the “fish” with them, and poor Grace had no idea what she was supposed to do with it. She was looking to him to help her figure it out.
“It’s okay,” he told the dog. “Just lie down, Grace. All done.”
She laid her head down on her front paws but her eyes stayed on Creed. He’d feel them there for the entire trip back home.
20
WASHINGTON, D.C.
O’DELL COULD SEE BENJAMIN PLATT waiting for her in the far corner booth of Old Ebbitt Grill. He was looking at a menu and hadn’t seen her yet. A half-empty pilsner reminded her how late she was. Still, she took an extra few seconds to stand back and take a good look at him.
Despite the restaurant’s dim light, she knew she would automatically peg him for a military officer—ramrod-straight back, clean-shaven, handsome face, short-cut hair, and the long, steady fingers of a surgeon. The serious set of his jaw remained, whether examining test tubes of level 4 viruses or simply making a decision between cheddar or American cheese for his burger. Sometimes she wished he wasn’t always so serious. He had a wickedly dry sense of humor and a kind and gentle manner, but his position demanded a tougher façade. O’Dell was one of the few people who saw the other side of Benjamin Platt. His serious manner was, of course, an understandable occupational hazard of his chosen profession.
As an infectious-disease officer (actually, director of USAMRIID, pronounced U-Sam-rid—United States Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases), his choices had to be careful and measured. The habit seeped into his personal life. Even his choice of seating was a well-thought-out process, taking the side of the booth that put his back to the corner wall so he’d be able to see everyone approach or pass by the table.
Maybe it didn’t bother her because her own career had ingrained similar habits in her that she had allowed to invade her personal life. Only recently had she realized how much of a personal life she did not have. When you chased killers for a living, you tended not to trust anyone except yourself. It was easier to keep people out.
She’d learned to compartmentalize the horrible crime scenes she’d witnessed over the years, and along with those images she’d stashed into separate compartments, she added the emotions of anger and fear. She’d gotten so good at it that she didn’t even realize she did the same thing with her personal life, bordering off her feelings and keeping people at arm’s length.
Then one day she realized she no longer even had much of a personal life. Why had she been surprised? You couldn’t shut people out just because you didn’t want to risk feeling too deeply or possibly getting hurt. Especially when she worked so hard to put up all those barricades in the first place.
In her experience, the hurt always came. It was just a matter of time. And that was the one thing she and Ben shared. They were so much alike that it was easy to be togethe
r. Like they had an unstated understanding of what to expect from each other. But perhaps that wasn’t enough to build a relationship on.
He saw her. Smiled. Like an officer and a gentleman, he stood up from the booth to greet her.
“Sorry I’m late,” she said as he leaned over and kissed her cheek. He smelled good, like he’d just gotten out of the shower. And only now did she realize that his hair was still damp, his face smooth from a second shave of the day. His khakis looked freshly pressed and his polo shirt was neatly tucked in. Had he primped just for her? Like a date? She searched his eyes for an answer, but he was already looking for the waiter.
“You’re always worth the wait,” he said with a glance as he continued to politely wait for her to sit down before he slid back into his place. He waved at a waiter, finally getting one’s attention. He pointed at his own pilsner and held up two fingers.
Maggie smiled and wondered when they had become so predictable with each other. Maybe it was simply that they had become comfortable with each other. Nothing wrong with that. Theirs had been a crazy dance. They had become friends—very good friends—then almost lovers. “Almost” because of Ben’s deliberate and measured choices, as though taking that next step was something that needed to be analyzed and calculated.
Recently he had made the mistake of confessing that he wanted children. O’Dell shouldn’t have been surprised, knowing he had lost his only daughter at the age of five. But when he announced it as though it were a requirement before they proceeded—that request, that admission, had been like a cold shower, putting the skids on whatever physical attraction had been there. So they had decided that they would be friends only. And just when they decided that was best, things started to heat up again. They were in the middle of heating up again over the last month or so, and neither of them seemed to want to admit it and rewrite the rules all over again. So they resorted to flirting, exchanging long, meaningful glances like a couple of goofy teenagers. Yes, a crazy dance.
They ordered burgers, fried calamari, and house salads off the late-night menu. Ben asked for blue cheese on his burger, raising O’Dell’s eyebrow and making him grin, as if to say, “See, I’m not so predictable after all.” So he had known exactly what she had been thinking.
As soon as the waiter left, Ben asked, “How’s Gwen doing?”
Gwen Patterson was O’Dell’s closest friend. No, she was more than that. Fifteen years O’Dell’s senior, Gwen was also a mentor as much as confidante. Three months ago, she’d been diagnosed with stage II breast cancer. O’Dell knew that Gwen was still trying to wrap her mind around that fact. As she told Ben about Gwen’s latest consult for yet another opinion, O’Dell couldn’t hide how worried she was that putting off the inevitable surgery would only make matters worse. All she could do was continue to nag Gwen, but her friend was already avoiding seeing or talking to her because of it.
By the time the calamari arrived, O’Dell realized she needed to change the subject. She asked Ben, “Can you take Jake and Harvey for a couple of days?”
Ben had become her dog sitter for her overnight assignments. Even their dogs got along great, and Ben had a huge backyard to accommodate them. It was as though they already shared custody.
“Sure. Digger will love having them. Where is Kunze sending you this time?”
She told him about the floater they’d pulled from the Potomac. Sharing her suspicions of it being a drug hit, and even how she had found Senator Delanor-Ramos in Kunze’s office. Any details she shared she knew Ben would keep to himself. His position at USAMRIID had conditioned him to keeping classified information classified, and therefore, made him the perfect confidant.
“You think it has something to do with the senator’s husband?” Ben knew where she was headed.
“His trial is coming up.” George Ramos was being held without bond in a federal prison in Florida.
“She’s on the Senate’s Homeland Security Committee. Maybe she was just going over Senate business.”
“Since when do senators come to Quantico for meetings?” O’Dell gave him a look, and he shrugged as if he already knew it was lame.
“Still, you don’t know that her visit had anything to do with this victim.”
“A package in the Potomac,” she said. “Stan thinks the guy was probably killed hundreds of miles south of here. Someone delivers a body, calls it a package, and deposits it within view of Washington, D.C.—do you really believe it’s not politically connected?”
“Could be a coincidence.”
“I don’t believe in coincidences.”
They sat back as the waiter brought their burgers and salads.
“Two more?” He pointed to their glasses but spoke directly to Ben. And Ben looked to and waited for O’Dell.
“Sure,” she said, knowing full well she wouldn’t allow herself a second. She’d take a few sips, and Ben wouldn’t notice, or at least he politely wouldn’t acknowledge it.
When the waiter left, Ben leaned across the table. “So I’m guessing Kunze isn’t sending you someplace? Where is it that you’re headed?”
“Andalusia, Alabama.”
“How exotic. Probably not a vacation destination.” He stared at her, elbows planted on either side of his food, hands clasped with no intention of beginning his meal until she explained.
“Kunze wants me to investigate,” she said as she picked up her fork and stabbed at her salad, trying to diffuse the concern in his eyes. “In order to do that, I need to find the original crime scene.”
“In Alabama?”
“That’s the address on the victim’s driver’s license. Seems like a good place to start. Besides, I’m guessing there are probably a lot of fire ants somewhere around there.”
21
THE FIRST THING THAT WENT through Amanda’s mind was that she had traded an angry, skinny, old woman for an angry, large, black woman. Both of them seemed like they would rather kill her than deal with her.
She couldn’t believe Ryder Creed had chosen to put her fate in the hands of this woman. He looked like such a nice guy. She hadn’t seen anger when she looked into his face. His eyes were a deep sky blue, like on a warm, sunny day when there isn’t a single cloud. She hadn’t seen a hint of anger in them—frustration, suspicion, impatience, but not anger.
Those eyes had convinced Amanda that he could be trusted. She was second-guessing that decision now. All of this simply reinforced what she already believed—that she couldn’t trust anyone but herself, even when she was sick and hurting.
“You need to take her to a hospital emergency room,” the woman, named Hannah, said while her eyes lasered up and down Amanda’s cramped body. “That’s my best advice.”
“They’ll kill me,” Amanda muttered. She had already said this three times to Ryder Creed, and she made sure her eyes remained focused on him and him alone. Did she really need to guilt him into rescuing her a second time? She didn’t have the energy to do that.
“Maybe you should have thought of that before you swallowed their product.”
“Hannah, she’s just a kid.”
It was still too soft for a scold but Amanda was relieved that Ryder Creed had finally said something, anything, that sounded like he might defend her.
“She’s only fourteen,” he added.
“That what she told you?” And the black woman rolled her eyes. She didn’t believe a word of it.
“It’s true.” Amanda shouted it, surprising herself. She had lied about her age for so long, always trying to look and sound older, and here she was telling the truth and this woman only raised her eyebrows at her.
She grabbed her stomach. The pain hadn’t gotten any worse but she didn’t want them to know that. Instead, she needed to keep reminding them that she was hurting . . . bad. Right now, it was her only salvation.
“I t
hink one of the balloons might have ruptured,” she told Ryder Creed, mustering up some tears.
“None of them ruptured, missy,” Hannah told her with a bite on the title “missy.” In fact, the indifference on her face hadn’t changed in the least, even the risk of a ruptured balloon didn’t seem to alarm her. “If one of them had ruptured, you wouldn’t be here telling us about it. You’d be dead. But I don’t suppose they told you that, did they?”
“It just hurts so bad.”
“Did your boyfriend use latex condoms?”
“My boyfriend?” How could she know about Leandro?
“The man who talked you into doing this. I bet he talked real sweet to you, didn’t he?”
Amanda felt her face go red. She was already hot and sweaty. Maybe they wouldn’t notice.
“The balloons . . . they’re condoms, isn’t that right?” the woman asked. “Did he use latex ones?”
Amanda only shrugged. Leandro had said he used the best, the strongest. He tied them so carefully. But she didn’t know what condoms were made of.
“I don’t know,” Amanda finally said.
“You might be allergic to latex,” Hannah said.
The woman crossed her arms over her chest and glanced at Ryder Creed. For the first time, Amanda thought she saw a hint of sympathy in the woman’s face.
“It didn’t hurt this bad the last time.”
And then immediately she realized her mistake, even before Hannah scowled at her. Any hint of sympathy disappeared. She could hear the disdain in the woman’s voice.
“Just how many times you done this?”
“Hannah, come on. You know they made her do this.”
“They put a gun to your head?”
“Hannah—”
“I just want them out of me!”
“The ER will know what—”
